One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.

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Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or 10 the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and 15 pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces. But let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayer of both 20 could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!"

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offences which in the providence of God must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him?

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Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said that "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice towards none, with charity for all, with 10 firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on, to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 15 among ourselves and with all nations.

LXXXVI.

THE HAND OF LINCOLN.

BY EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.'

Look on this cast,' and know the hand
That bore a nation in its hold;

From this mute witness understand

What Lincoln was-how large of mould

The man who sped the woodman's team,
And deepest sunk the plowman's share,
And pushed the laden raft astream,

Of fate before him unaware.

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This was the hand that knew to swing

The ax-since thus would Freedom train
Her son and made the forest ring,
And drove the wedge, and toiled amain.

Firm hand, that loftier office took,

A conscious leader's will obeyed,

And when men sought his word and look, With steadfast might the gathering swayed.

No courtier's, toying with a sword,

Nor minstrel's, laid across a lute;

A chief's, uplifted to the Lord

When all the kings of earth were mute!

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The hand of Anak,' sinewed strong,
The fingers that on greatness clutch;

Yet, lo! the marks their lines along

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Of one who strove and suffered much.

For here in knotted cord and vein

I trace the varying chart of years;
I know the troubled heart, the strain,
The weight of Atlas-and the tears.

Again I see the patient brow

That palm erewhile was wont to press; And now 'tis furrowed deep, and now

Made smooth with hope and tenderness.

For something of a formless grace
This molded outline plays about;
A pitying flame, beyond our trace,

Breathes like a spirit, in and out—

The love that cast an aureole

Round one who, longer to endure,
Called mirth to ease his ceaseless dole,
Yet kept his nobler purpose sure.

Lo, as I gaze, the statured man,
Built up from yon large hand, appears!
A type that Nature wills to plan
But once in all a people's years.

What better than this voiceless cast
To tell of such a one as he,

Since through its living semblance passed
The thought that bade a race be free?"

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LXXXVII.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

BY WALT WHITMAN.

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought

is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

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O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle

trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here, Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed

and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object

won;

Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells!

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

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LXXXVIII.

THE MOUSE.

BY WILLIAM D. HOWELLS.'

WISHING to tell the story of our Mouse, because I think it illustrates some amusing traits in a certain class of Venetians, I explain at once that he was not a mouse, but a man so called from his wretched, trembling little 25 manner, his fugitive expression and peakèd visage.